


Shards (of us)

by ughineedcoffee



Series: The Runt of the Litter [29]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crying, Gen, Grief, Parental Dean Winchester, Parental Sam Winchester, Winchester Sister, little sister - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29610183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ughineedcoffee/pseuds/ughineedcoffee
Summary: Follow-up/sequel of sorts to Glass Lives.Anna's mother is dead. For real this time. And she played too big a part in the fallout not to be buried deep in guilt and grief.
Series: The Runt of the Litter [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112966
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4





	Shards (of us)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, beautiful people  
> Thanks so much to everyone who's been leaving kudos and comments (and really just to all of you who read this series <3). I truly love reading your thoughts on each update, and while I fully understand that some people aren't comfortable leaving comments or kudos (I never used to be before I started posting stories myself), I do want to voice my appreciation for everyone who has.  
> On with the story. As in Glass Lives, Anna is fifteen.

Yet one more sleepless night ended with the sound of her alarm clock jerking her from a state of spacey exhaustion, staring at her bedroom ceiling. Anna sighed heavily through her nose and rolled over to bury her face, burning eyes and all, into her pillow.

It was the same every night, blonde curly hair that was just like hers leaving sanguine stains behind her eyes. She was glad they'd been at the bunker for the week and a half since her mother, because she'd been able to keep her nightmares mostly to herself. Of course, that didn't make it any easier. Her eyes were beginning to constantly look like she'd been punched in the face, the bags under them so dark.

In a stupor of sorts, Anna stumbled out to the kitchen, barefoot, in her pajama pants and a hoodie. She filled the first mug she could find to the brim with dark roast coffee and didn't bother drinking it any way other than black. Solely because her body protested the idea of moving anymore at the moment, she sat at the kitchen table and alternated between resting her aching head against the cool wood and lifting it to take cautious sips of too-hot coffee.

Her eyes burned, but that was a constant these days. She didn't even flinch when she heard footsteps enter the kitchen. She didn't have the energy to lift her head, so she didn't until one of the chairs across the table from her was pulled out and Sam sat down in it.

"Time is it?" she asked him groggily before diving into her cup of coffee, which had finally reached drinking temperature.

"Seven," Sam answered, looking like he had something more to say. He stayed quiet.

Anna bobbed her head in a slightly uncoordinated nod. It was just as she finished her cup of coffee and set down an empty mug that Sam spoke again.

"You, uh... doin' okay?" he asked casually, then hid his face behind his own cup of coffee.

Anna looked slowly up at him, trying to think of a way to answer that, but mostly hoping she wouldn't have to. Sam's gaze didn't waver, though, as he studied her eyes, clearly seeing something worrisome there if the crinkle between his eyebrows was any indication. "I'm fine," she finally said when it became clear he was willing to wait her out.

"Are you sure?" Sam repeated in disbelief as she stood up and began to pour herself a cup of coffee. "Because it's been almost two weeks now, Anna, and you still haven't said anything about-"

"I'm sure." Anna slammed the coffee pot back into place harder than necessary. She tried to convince herself not to say it, but after a few seconds, she failed and added a terse, "I didn't even know her." Then she wrapped her palms around her coffee cup and let the skin there burn red as she walked out of the room.

In her room, she changed into a clean-ish pair of leggings that she was pretty sure she'd already worn once this week and a gray oversized hoodie that read simply _don't care._ in white lettering. Looking for a quiet kind of comfort, she chose her bulkiest OSIRIS sneakers and walked out her bedroom door as late as possible-- at 7:30-- with her backpack slung lazily over one shoulder, phone in hand as she blared _Wonderless_ into her earbuds.

"Hey, she lives," Dean deadpanned when Anna entered the library, wrapping her headphones around her phone because Dean always gave her shit for it if she had earbuds in on the ride to school. "Ready?" he asked when she didn't respond.

"As I'll ever be," Anna said dryly and hitched her backpack a little higher on her shoulder.

()()()

Kate's foot hit her ankle, and Anna jerked awake. She blinked until the classroom stopped looking so blurry, and she saw a tall man in a collared shirt looking down at her disapprovingly. Maybe under different circumstances, she could've gotten away with a simple, believably sincere apology, but Mr Langley was a strict teacher, and he'd warned her about sleeping in class daily for about a week now. Anna knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"Miss Campbell. Did you know you don't need to come to class to sleep? You can do that at home." Except that she couldn't seem to lately. "Come see me after class," he instructed and moved back to the front of the room.

Anna stared after him, trying hard to control her frustration. He didn't know, but it was hard to care about that when she was feeling so much like shit. Lacking her usual inhibitions, Anna glared at the back of his head as the teacher stalked to the white board. She managed to wipe the look off her face before he turned back around, but only because Kate's foot hit her ankle again.

"Now, since you've been paying such close attention all week, Anna, I think I'll let you solve the challenge problem."

_Dick_ , Anna thought but didn't say, her face growing pink with embarrassment. _Giant dick. You giant dick._ She got up from her seat, brain still heavy with fog, and thought about the stain of blood on her mother's stomach. She looked at the whiteboard and at the blue dry-erase marker her teacher was holding out. She thought about the way the handcuffs had felt digging into her wrists, about the cast still on one of her wrists. She moved to the front of the room lethargically, not even feeling fully present. She used her casted hand to take the marker from her teacher because she wanted him to feel guilty. Then turned to look at the problem laid out on the white board. But it was all just jumbles of blue and black ink. They'd just started with rational functions last she knew, and this was a hell of a rational function. She stared at it for a moment, trying to think of a first step. Oh. She was supposed to combine two functions and then graph the resulting one. And to do that, she had to... to...

Giving up, Anna turned around, threw the marker to the other end of the classroom, and asked her teacher. "Headmaster's office?" There were a number of startled sounds and nervous smiles.

"No," Langley said. "You're going to solve the problem," he asserted. "All of your classmates have put time and effort into this course all semester, and you haven't done your homework in a week. You haven't participated in class. You haven't listened to a thing I've taught. You flunked the last test-"

A number of people made sounds of disapproval at his sharing that information, and Anna's face went red as she tore her eyes away from the teacher's to look at a poster on the wall behind him. _I've got 99 problems and you're going to show your work on all of them_ , it said.

_I've got 99 problems and you're a big fuckin' one of 'em,_ Anna thought of the prick in front of her.

"There's no room for that in this classroom. You're an intelligent girl, Anna. Now pick up a marker and solve this problem. We'll all wait for you."

Anna didn't know what to do with that. She didn't even have the energy to tell him where he could shove his dry erase markers, though, so she just turned back to the board and looked at the problem again. She knew she should just do it. Get it over with and do her best to stay awake, and maybe do her homework tonight, and the guy would get off her back. But she looked at the letters and numbers on the board, and she felt the eyes on her, and she knew she would start crying if she even tried to put the marker to the board. So, instead, she turned and caught Kate's eyes, seeing her own pain reflected in them.

"I can't," she said quietly. "I can't, Mr Langley. I'm sorry."

Maybe it was something in her voice, but the teacher's determination that she would solve the problem seemed to wane. He didn't lose his frustration, though. He leaned in intimidatingly, and Anna flinched when he spoke harshly and loudly. "Then get out of my classroom."

Anna stood in the wake of his order for a second, then hurried to her seat and grabbed her backpack. Leaving sounded just fine to her. It was leaving filled to the brim with shame and embarrassment that hurt. Not to mention, Kate looked ravaged over this, and Anna couldn't even look her in the eye as she slung her bag over her shoulder and made for the door. At least she would be free. At least she could sit somewhere and be alone. At least she could look around, see nobody, and cry. God, she needed to cry. Had she even cried since this whole ordeal started?

"Anna." She looked back, managing to meet Langley's eyes by some miracle. "Headmaster's office."

And there it all went.

()()()

She sat rigid on the bench outside, knees pulled to her chest, face buried in them. It was ridiculously hard not to cry, which was frustrating because she was usually so good at holding back tears. Had a lifetime of practice, after all. But she was tired... exhausted, and she'd never felt such an overload of embarrassment and shame combined with the mess of emotions already controlling her life these days.

She stayed in that position for nearly an hour before she heard heels clicking against the floor. Only when the sound got close to her did Anna look up. Bloodshot green eyes settled on the school's disciplinarian and headmaster.

"Twice in a semester. I'd expected better," Mrs Warren said before stepping into her office and holding the door wide open. Anna stood up, holding her gaze, and snatched her backpack aggressively off the bench, beginning to feel the same since of aggravation she had the last time she entered this office. Again, she felt unjustly accused. How dare these people be disappointed in her while they failed _her_?

She concealed nearly all of these feelings, though, as she sat down in one of the chairs situated across from the headmaster's desk. Mrs Warren took her place behind the desk after closing the door. "You know the drill," she said deliberately, again rubbing it in that Anna had been here recently. "Tell me what happened."

Anna let her expression hang blank. "Like you don't already know."

"Would you like to hear what I know first then?" Anna didn't say anything, and Warren seemed to take that as a 'yes.' "Sleeping in class. Every day for a week. Talking back to your teacher. Throwing school property. Refusing to make any effort at any form of class work." Again, Anna stayed silent. "I spoke to your other teachers as well, and all of them report the same thing. Now, some of them are worried. Others are frustrated. All of them are disappointed. You're a bright student from what I hear."

"Is that supposed to be a guilt trip, or is there a question in there?"

"Oh, now, you see, I remember this game," Mrs. Warren said, undeterred. "And do you remember what we did last time you played it with me?" Anna frowned in a combination of confusion and worry. "We called your father."

" _Brother_ ," Anna corrected with vehemence, wasting not a single second.

Mrs. Warren looked sympathetic and guilty, but it only lasted a moment. "Your brother," she said apologetically, but she didn't offer any sort of formal apology. "Now, the circumstances being different this time around, I'm willing to let you make the call yourself, but a call goes home anytime a student visits my office."

Anna's silence returned, and she didn't say a word, just watched as Mrs. Warren clicked a few times on her computer and then picked up her phone and dialed. She stared at the wood of the desk in front of her as she listened to one side of the dreaded phone call.

"Hi. Dean, isn't it? This is Katherine Warren... That's right... No. Not another fight. Just... unruly behavior... It really isn't necessary for you to come _right now_. We can set up a meeting at a more convenient time if you'd like... Alright, then... Thank you."

Anna bit her lip as the phone clicked back into place. "He's comin', huh?" she asked softly.

"Did you expect he wouldn't?"

Anna didn't know what she'd expected. Maybe nothing at all. It was hard for her to think beyond the very second she was living. It took twenty minutes, but both boys walked into the office, and Anna wasn't sure what to think about that, but she was certainly surprised by it. She tried not to react, though, and the only movement that escaped was her foot twitching away from the floor to rest instead against the leg of her chair.

Mrs. Warren stood up and stepped around her desk to shake each of their hands. But Anna felt all of their eyes on her in the very next moment. _She wants_ me _to orchestrate this?_ she thought bitterly and stayed steadfastly silent, slouched in her chair.

"So, what happened?" Sam asked, and Anna was grateful that he didn't seem to be directing the question at her.

"Well, I wasn't present," the headmaster replied. "And I haven't gotten any straight answers out of her. But as far as Ted tells me, your sister was blatantly defiant and unruly in the classroom today."

"What does that even mean?" Dean asked, unimpressed by such an unrevealing description.

Mrs Warren didn't answer, instead looking at Anna, who bounced her knee a couple times. She knew better than to stall on something that, to her teacher, likely seemed simple. But she knew that she would be welcoming some worrying by admitting how tired she was all the time. She said quietly, "I fell asleep." She glanced up without lifting her head and saw looks of confusion take over both her brothers' faces.

"That's... it?" Dean asked, sounding almost angry. Anna got it. She could see in both her brothers' faces not only now but every time they looked at her lately, that they were worried. She hadn't been sleeping right, and that particular problem was showing in both their eyes at the moment-- she was tired enough to be falling asleep in class, which had never been a problem for her before. With her already struggling and this alleged offense being only proof of that, she wasn't surprised that Dean sounded like he was getting pissed. A teacher and the headmaster putting her through unnecessary shit on top of everything else was pissing Anna off too.

"Well, and I threw a marker. So he'd send me here."

The confusion was exasperated now, and Dean gave her a look that asked _why the hell_ , but Anna didn't feel like explaining any further. She'd admitted to her crimes, and both items on the short list had sounded rather mild coming out of her mouth. Both her brothers looked to the headmaster next, though.

"Alright, you know, as weird as that is, it still sounds pretty mild to me," Sam said. "So why are we here?"

"I'll be honest," Mrs Warren replied in a drawl that made her sound much less like a hardass. "I didn't call you here because she fell asleep or... threw a whiteboard marker." Anna pursed her lips at the way even the headmaster seemed to think that was a weird offense. "Her teacher was extremely frustrated." Anna rolled her eyes. She'd totally needed that message relayed, as if Langley hadn't gotten it across perfectly well. "So frustrated, in fact, that multiple students have reported what they saw as an inappropriate reaction to a pretty mild problem in the classroom."

"What the hell does that mean?" Dean demanded. "What'd he do?"

A muscle in Anna's face twitched as she tried not to focus on the embarrassment that flooded her system a second time just thinking of how he'd stood her down. God, she hoped Mrs Warren didn't know, wasn't about to tell that story.

"I don't have any details," came the miraculous response. "All I know is that it was a tense situation that ended with your sister being sent to my office. When I spoke to Ted, he said that for over a week now, her work has been insufficient. She's missed every assignment, slept through most of every class period, and not participated in class. I'd think disciplinary action was the way to go if not for the fact that every one of her other teachers has reported the same thing. So, I have to ask. What's going on?"

Maybe she should have been grateful for the turn from judgement to empathy. But it infuriated her instead, and it was evident in every tense muscle of her body. It was clear to her by the deafening silence that took over the room in the next second that neither of the boys had seen that question coming either.

"Something _is_ going on?" she repeated.

Something was going on alright. Behind Anna's eyes in her waking and in her nightmares. Blood on the floor, blood on her hands, blood on her mother's stomach, blood on the blade as Abaddon pulled it out with a slick sound and let it clatter to the floor. The blood on the blade sticking to the dirt on the floor as they intermingled. Blood draining, life with it. The roar of her heartbeat in her ears, her own screams a whispery echo when her senses only wanted to focus on the smell and sight of blood, blood, blood, and the loss of it.

"That's not your business," Anna snapped as soon as the words had left Warren's mouth.

"Anna," Dean warned, being gentle all things considered.

Obediently, Anna went quiet again and slouched a little further in her chair. This whole day was such bullshit, but saying so would only make things worse. Besides she had other things to worry about: the fact that she would be missing another night of sleep tonight, that the bags under her eyes would find a darker shade to turn tomorrow, that the whites of her eyes would get a little redder, that the ache settling into her body would pang worse, that her cast wouldn't be gone yet, that school would still be waiting for her and she would still have to come, that Kate would still be worried about her and her family would still be worried about her and she would still have to go, go, go as if she were capable of it. All of this was caused by the things she was _really_ worried about, even as she tried to suppress their invasions of her mind: a demon's promise that her mother regretted her, the knowledge that she'd inadvertently taken everything from her mother, expected more, and consequently taken Chloe's life as well. There was guilt over Chloe, layers and layers of it, and there was guilt for betraying her family, and there was guilt for being ungrateful, for wanting something she'd always been fine without. Then there was humiliation for being such a stupid kid as to think that her mother would have wanted her, that she could have offered something Anna didn't already have, that she was her mother at all and not a demon taking advantage of a stupid kid with a mile-wide weak spot. Talk about the fall of Troy. She still didn't understand her own helpless naivety and just thinking about it made Anna antsy and irritable again, but they were still stuck in this dumbass Headmaster's office.

"That's okay," Mrs Warren said. "But, I would recommend, Anna, that if you want your personal business to stay personal, you leave it at home."

"Hang on," Sam said with a slight defensive quality to his voice. "That's not fair either." Anna was grateful for his defense because she couldn't do anything more than fix Warren with a look of disgusted pain. She knew, though, that her bloodshot eyes were doing a pretty good job of saying that _leaving it at home_ wasn't an option, because Mrs Warren's steadfast expression changed.

She raised an eyebrow at Sam, and she didn't say anything in argument. "Fine," she said, maintaining her professionalism. "No more class disruptions then."

Anna scoffed. "Tell Langley that one."

"Excuse me?" Warren demanded, turning a harsh look on Anna.

Before anyone else could speak, Anna shot up in her seat again. "Why do you think you know what happened? You _said_ you weren't there."

"Okay, that's enough," Dean cut her off, stepping around Sam to get to her. He put a hand on her shoulder that was surprisingly comforting.

Anna shrugged his hand off, not interested in comfort. "Just saying, you should tell _Ted_ not to be a dick-"

"Hey! That's enough," Dean said again, much harsher this time.

Mrs Warren seemed to believe she'd won somehow by Dean's reaction. She looked at Anna and began, "If you'd like to explain-"

"No," Anna interrupted vehemently.

"Hey," Dean reprimanded a third time. "Cut it out." Anna let out an irritated breath, but she relaxed a little and stopped talking. Message received. "Look, we're gonna take her home," he told Warren. "But if you have time we can talk for a minute..."

Anna grit her teeth, trying not to be annoyed at the knowledge that he was going to come up with an explanation on her behalf. Likely, it wouldn't involve half the blood it should. She glared down at the cast on her arm, sloppy signatures sprawled all across it, when Mrs. Warren agreed, remembering the way her wrist had looked when they pulled into a hospital parking lot and Dean hauled her out of the backseat. She'd started to feel the pain of it by then, but she had also been in shock. She'd barely been able to walk a straight line on the way inside, even with him and Sam on either side of her, talking to her and coaxing her through the parking lot and inside, even though the only thing she she'd been able to keep straight in her head was that she didn't want to go to the hospital.

The keys to the Impala suddenly dangled in front of her face, and Anna let the sound of them jingling together pull her away from the night of cold bones and blood mixed into dirt. "Go wait in the car," Dean told her, and Anna snatched the keys up in her good hand without a second to waste. She was grateful for the out and didn't even stop or say a word, just left.

In the backseat of the Impala, she lay on her back, feet against one door, head against the other, and she crossed her arms over her eyes, her cast heavy and hard against her forehead. She let her eyes well with tears and thought about crying. But now that she was finally free to do just that in the comfort of her own home, it wasn't happening. She'd held her tears in too long and they'd learned to hide for themselves, someplace even she couldn't find them.

The passenger door in the front creaked open and the seat depressed with a slight airy sound before the door creaked again and shut with a light slam and a latching sound.

Anna didn't move her arms. "What, did you get kicked out?"

"No, but Dean's got it under control. You, on the other hand..."

Anna shifted in the seat so that she could turn just slightly to face the seatback, her casted arm still laying heavily over her eyes. "Seriously?" she sighed, not in the mood for a heart to heart. Her body ached and sank into the bench seat beneath her as if lined with weights or saturated with mud.

"You say you're fine, Anna, but you're falling asleep in the middle of the day. I mean, we knew you weren't sleeping well, but..."

"I sleep," Anna said defensively.

"Yeah, in math class," Sam reminded her.

Anna sat up, feeling the ache in each of her joints as she settled with her back against the door. "Whatever works," she grumbled and pulled her knees into her chest to rest her chin on them.

Sam sighed, but he let that particular matter drop. "So what did this teacher do?"

"It doesn't matter," Anna said, voice strained with fatigue.

"It does if he mistreated you."

"Well, I don't care. I'll just skip his class or something."

"Anna."

"Fine, then I'll go and pin my eyes open with toothpicks. There are solutions that don't involve tattling on my fucking math teacher."

"Okay, hang on. One: that language isn't necessary. Two: Think of it as preventative so he doesn't do it again to somebody else. Whatever it is."

"He's not gonna do it again, Sam," Anna said, sounding tired but sure of herself. "Nobody else is gonna be stupid enough to fall asleep in his class, and even if they did he wouldn't have the same ammo because nobody else is failing."

Sam swiveled in his seat and Anna realized her mistake. "You're failing? How is that possible? You had a 95 in that class two weeks ago." He paused and Anna met his eyes, reminding him with a single look that she wasn't the same kid she'd been two weeks ago. "Anna..." he said as if only now realizing how hard hitting this whole disaster had been for her. But she knew he wasn't really just getting it. He was just finally letting his concern bleed out of every pore when he spoke to her.

Anna just held his gaze, waiting for him to say something wise and caring that wouldn't help. To her surprise, he didn't say anything. Not verbally. Instead, the space between their eyes filled with history and yearning. Anna wanted to take that desperate look out of Sam's eyes almost as much as he wanted to take the broken one out of hers. He gave the slightest shake of his head, and she could hear the things he wasn't saying, could understand that he didn't have anything to give her except the fact that he didn't want her to feel the way she did. It was an unusual place for her to see him. Sam knew things. He knew just about everything. Until he didn't, and then things were painful and complicated.

The creaking of the driver's door split the moment in half, cutting the static between their eyes so that both looked away. Anna curled forward again, arms around her shins and chin atop her knees. Dean tossed her backpack over the seatback and it landed on the seat at her toes.

"When we get home, you need to get some sleep," he said in a voice that was a strange combination of stressed, stern, and careful. "And then we can talk."

She'd seen it coming, but that didn't make it easier. Anna looked at Dean's face in the mirror as he stared straight ahead and pulled away from the school. He'd gotten her away for most of a school day, but she would have to come back tomorrow, and even before then, she'd have to talk.

()()()

It took her a long time to decide. She lay curled on her bed with her pillow tucked tightly against her stomach, period cramps immobilizing her almost as completely as her grief seemed to lately. She thought about trying to fix this before it started hurting other people.

Kate already told her how worried she was about five times a day, and that only added to Anna's guilt, led her to say "I'm fine," an extra five times a day on top of the recitations she practiced in the bathroom mirror every morning so she'd be ready to say it to Sam and Dean when they inevitably asked her if she was okay. Those two were the much more difficult part, though. She could tell Kate she was fine, put on a smile for an hour, and, even if her friend saw through it-- which she often did-- it was okay, because they were only together for a few hours every day.

Better, Anna _could_ be honest with Kate sometimes. She could say, "I feel like shit and it's not getting better," and then she could cry and Kate would get teary-eyed because Anna hurting made her hurt, and they would find a way to laugh a few minutes later, but nothing was solved because a few minutes of tears just wasn't enough.

The boys knew better. They could tell the difference between shallow tears that were just enough for her to regain balance and a real cry that actually got something off her chest. She could remember only twice in her lifetime that she'd really cried long and hard in front of another person. A few months after their father's death, she'd crawled into Sam's lap and cried for hours, cried herself hoarse, cried until she threw up, and then kept crying until there was nothing left in her at all. And then she rebuilt.

She'd cried like that after Bobby, too. But she'd done it alone. She'd cried like that each time one of her brothers died, but she'd almost always done that alone too, because she knew that the brother she still had was hurting as bad as she was, if not worse.

But there'd been one time, when they were staying with Lisa and Sam was in Hell. She'd been sitting next to Ben on the curb outside and something she'd seen had prompted her to start doing some headmath. She'd calculated, slowly but surely, how long it had been for Sam, how long he'd been in Hell for by unearthly time. She'd come out with a number painfully high. A number that meant years instead of weeks. She'd started to cry slowly, and Ben had been confused. He'd said something derogatory, something that implied she was crying for no reason because to him it looked like she was. She'd punched him in the face, and he'd stood up with wounded pride and a bruised face. He'd asked what was wrong with her and she'd said she never cried for no reason. She didn't even cry for herself, just other people. Ben had given her a little shove, but then he'd seen that she was still crying and he'd said he was sorry. He'd gone inside and Anna had sat back down on the curb and curled in on herself and tried to stop crying, to no avail. It had taken only a couple minutes for Dean to come outside, but it had taken hours for the crying to stop, and by that time, she was empty again.

Somewhere, deep down, Anna knew she was due for one more cry. But on the surface, all she could think was that she'd been a kid before and she just wasn't one anymore. She had no right to be selfish about her grief anymore. She knew better. And she'd brought it upon herself.

Still, as she lay in bed-- sleeping as far as her brothers were concerned-- something made her pick up her phone and dial a number she hadn't even thought of calling in the last two weeks. It rang five times and was halfway through the sixth before the call connected.

" _Sheriff Mills._ "

Anna swallowed, unsure what to say now that she had Jody on the phone. Jody who clearly hadn't checked the caller ID before picking up the phone. "Hey, Jody," she greeted softly.

It took a second, but then, " _Anna?_ "

"Yeah... Do- do you have a minute?"

" _Sure thing. Give me one second,_ " she requested. There was the muffled sound of Jody yelling to somebody, and then some footsteps, a door closing, and, " _What's going on?_ "

Anna didn't bother with lying in any form. No _Does there have to be something going on for me to call you?_ No pretending the answer to that question was _Not much_. She hugged her pillow tighter against her stomach and stared at her soft gray socks where her feet stuck off the side of the bed. Her phone was cold against her ear. "Can I tell you something bad that happened?" she requested, because she didn't want to dump anything on anybody.

There was a pause, and Jody's voice was distinctly different when she spoke again. " _Well, after that introduction, you'd_ better _tell me._ "

Anna's mouth twitched up, but it went flat again almost immediately. She curled her toes, realized they were cold and numb. "I killed my mother," she whispered, warmth dripping from the corner of her left eye to hang off the bridge of her nose before finally dropping against the mattress.

" _What are you talking about? I thought your mother was..._ "

"That's what they told me. She left right after I was born. I guess she was trying to protect me. Or she just didn't want me. It depends on whose story you listen to."

" _And you're telling me that you killed her?_ "

"I mean, I didn't put the knife in her chest. Not directly."

" _Well, then, Anna, you didn't kill her_."

"You weren't there, Jody. I was so stupid," she sniffled. The mattress was wet beside her right shoulder, a tiny puddle forming on the fabric of her bedsheets. "I don't know how I was so stupid."

" _Where are you right now, Sweetie?_ "

"At home. Why?"

" _Just checking. Keep talking to me. What exactly happened?_ "

"It was a demon, Jody. She possessed my mother and then another demon killed them both, and we were all right there, but I was cuffed, and it was- it was _Abaddon_ , so intervening would have just left one of us dead too and... it was really bad. I'm trying really hard to be normal about it. I didn't know her. But I keep thinking about her. I didn't even get to meet the real her, Jody. I just found out I had a mother, that she was alive, and I was stupid and I killed her."

" _You're not making much sense here, kiddo._ "

"I know," Anna mumbled, because she _did_ know. She was blaming it on the sleep deprivation, the sadness, the guilt. Anything and everything, but she wasn't taking the blame for herself this time. Just this once, it was something else's fault. "I'm sorry. That stuff's not the point anyway."

" _It isn't?_ "

"I thought maybe you could tell me why I'm so upset."

" _Come again?_ "

"About my mother. I didn't even know her, but I swear, it's not just guilt, Jody. I'm really sad. Don't want to do anything sad. Can't sleep sad. I'm so sad I barely feel the guilt, cause I feel like I hurt myself more than anybody else. Other than Chloe. That's my mother. Was."

" _That's grief, Anna. You lost someone important to you. Whether you knew her or not, you had a shot and it was taken away. Of course you're hurt. You have every right to be._ "

"Do I?" Anna challenged, and the question weighed a hundred pounds. It made Jody's voice sound achy when she answered, but it made Anna's shoulders feel a little lighter. She'd been carrying that around for weeks.

" _Yes, you do. Nobody can take that from you._ "

It made something in her stomach untwist, but only momentarily. "Even me?" she asked, but it sounded like a plea. Maybe it was one.

" _Why would you take that from yourself?_ "

"I take things from myself all the time," Anna admitted. "But this is different. I mean, I don't even want a mother. Not anymore. She wasn't even real."

" _I'm not following._ "

"She was just a person, Jody. I mean, technically, I talked to a demon, but she was a person. And that's my fault. I don't know how to be a daughter."

" _Anna..._ "

"I just don't get why I'm so sad, you know? I don't know why I'm sad. I just am, and I shouldn't be. But I am."

" _Okay... honey, you sound beat. Why don't you stop thinking for a little while and get some rest. That's why you're home on a school day, I'm guessing?_ "

"Yeah."

" _Okay. But, first..._ "

"Yeah?"

" _You're not responsible for what happened, Anna. I don't believe for a second that you are. Even if you did make some kind of mistake. I don't know the whole story but, whatever happened, nothing changes the fact that you get to feel however you do about it. Nobody can argue that, even you, and you can't make yourself stop feeling that way if you just keep saying you shouldn't. Far as I've seen, that method has never helped anybody._ "

Anna was quiet as she thought about that. She knew it was true. How was she supposed to get over anything if she just kept shoving it sideways? But at the same time, she couldn't help but feel wrong. She couldn't help but think she deserved the guilt, deserved the sadness, and at the same time shouldn't feel the sadness, just the guilt. It was all tangled up. But she didn't say that.

"Thanks, Jody," she said.

" _Don't thank me._ "

"Uh, before you go..."

" _Yeah?_ "

"You're gonna call Dean, aren't you?" she asked with some level of dread.

" _Some reason I shouldn't?_ "

With a heavy sigh, Anna closed her bloodshot eyes. "I just want to bounce back," she said. "How am I supposed to bounce back if they don't think I'm okay?"

" _How are you supposed to bounce back if they do think you're okay?_ "

_Touché_ , Anna thought. She forced her heavy eyelids to open again. "You don't have to do it," she decided, on the edge of sleep. "I can tell him myself."

" _Will you?_ "

"Yeah," Anna said sincerely. "I'm tired, Jody. I'm tired of being sad. I'll tell them, I promise. I'll be honest."

" _I want a call after_."

"Promise."

" _Then get some rest_."

"Right," Anna replied, and she heard the tone that meant Jody had hung up the phone. But all she could think was. _Rest? But everything's covered in glass. There's nowhere to lay down._ Then she fell asleep.

()()()

_Knife handle sticking out of her chest, Chloe walked slowly closer to her daughter._

_Anna yanked hard against the cuffs around her wrists and felt cold. Tears dripped off her chin and she didn't look up, instead staring at the floor, seeing the dirt and blood mixed together. But she couldn't hide completely, because she couldn't bring her hands up to cover her ears, and so she listened to the shallow echo in them as her mother whispered and then shouted. "I gave you life. I gave you_ life _! And this is how you repay me?!"_

She jumped awake to a hand on her shoulder and turned onto her back, looking groggily up at Dean's face hovering above her.

"Hey," he greeted quietly. "You okay? You were dreaming." Anna was grateful that he hadn't said _having a nightmare_ , but that didn't change the fact that they both knew what kind of dream she'd been having. She just rubbed her eyes and with the backs of her hands and didn't answer him. It was effective in getting him to move on. "Sam got dinner. Come on."

In the kitchen, things were quiet but for the crinkling of paper bags as they each pulled out their food. Sandwiches from the deli in town. Usually, Anna lived for this particular meal. Usually, her head wasn't full of images of her mother, gray-faced with a knife sticking out of her chest, stalking forward and accusing her. She ate half her sandwich because half seemed to be the magic number these days to be allowed to leave the table without questions and orders being tossed at her.

She heard the usual sighs when she set her food down and pulled her feet up onto her chair, as she took a sip of Monster sweet enough to make her teeth disintegrate. "What?" she asked when they both glanced surreptitiously up at her.

"I was thinking," Sam said, then took a sip of water. "I could help you get caught up on your math tonight. Then, maybe, tomorrow, you could spend the day here, keep working on getting up to speed in the rest of your classes."

Anna tried to take the gesture for what it was: thoughtful, reasonable, kind. She couldn't summon up a smile, but she did say, "Thanks," and it sounded as sincere as she meant it to be.

She didn't believe that one day would be enough, especially because it seemed to take her twenty times as long to get anything done these days. But at least she wouldn't have to go to school. At least if she fell asleep on top of her math work here, she would get a gentle shake and a "You okay?" instead of a few minutes of humiliation. And tomorrow was Friday, so she would have the weekend too, not that she thought she would be very productive then either. Hell, she didn't even know _what_ assignments she'd been missing or which ones she had coming up. She wasn't even really present when she was at school anymore. She just existed there and played out bad memories and alternatives to them inside her head. And sometimes, she fell asleep.

"So... you're good with that?" Sam checked, bending his head slightly forward and trying to catch her eyes.

Anna gave him her gaze, and it was nothing like the moment they'd shared in the car this morning. This was a fleeting, closed off look. "Something to do," she said. "And I'll take any excuse to skip school." She decided as she spoke that those were the right words, that they were very _her_. She knew how to act like herself. She pulled her eyes away from Sam's as soon as she'd finished talking. She'd finally gotten some sleep, if only five or six hours, and she was no longer willing to give up so much of herself so easily.

It was with that thought that Anna remembered that she'd called Jody. The memory was blurry at best. She'd been so tired, literally having pulled two all-nighters in a row, that she'd felt almost intoxicated in the worst way. She'd said so much, and she couldn't even remember most of it. She did, though, remember making some kind of promise, one she couldn't recall the details of.

"Awesome," Dean said around a bite of his sandwich. Sam shot him a look, and he rolled his eyes. "So, this Ted guy..."

Anna rolled her eyes this time. "Seriously still on that?"

"I just want to know what he did," Dean said placatingly. "I solemnly swear not to beat him up unless he deserves it."

"And we both know your standards for him deserving it are low," Anna said levelly.

"He's not gonna give up," Sam informed her, and Anna used the fingers of her casted arm to pick aimlessly at the crusts of her sandwich.

"It was just stupid. He tried to make me do a problem on the board that I obviously didn't know how to do because I've been... you know."

"That's it? Math teachers do that all the time."

Anna shook her head. "Man, I was so tired I couldn't even see numbers and letters, just jumbles. Looked like it was written in greek or something. But he wouldn't let me go back and sit down, so I threw the marker and asked him to send me to the headmaster's office but he was so frickin' determined that I was gonna do the problem. He started yelling and told everybody I was failing. It was embarrassing and uncomfortable, but that's it."

"Why didn't you tell the headmaster?" Sam asked.

"Because I don't like her."

"Well, you must hate your math teacher more."

"Not really."

"That makes no sense."

"What _does_ make sense?" Anna asked and then realized she'd accidentally given that question too many layers just by the tone of her voice.

"You really don't care?" Dean clarified, as if trying to decide whether he had any ass-kicking to do or not.

"No. I don't care." How could she care when there was so much else to worry about? "Any leads on Abaddon?" she asked through a sigh, knowing the answer she would get before she got it.

"Not yet," Sam said softly. "But we're workin' on it."

Anna nodded and let her heavy cast rest on top of her knees. With her eyes, she traced the outline of Kate's signature, Ethan's, all the other kids', people she didn't know well or at all scrawling their names on her in colored ink.

Twenty minutes later, she sat at a table in the library squinting at Sam as if he'd just grown a foot out of his forehead. Maybe that would have confused her less than this math work. "Okay..." she said slowly. "I'm gonna need that whole explanation again."

Sam smiled a little and pointed at the paper in front of them. "It's just like normal long division, but you have to account for the x in each expression." He pointed at the first term of the dividend. "What do you multiply two x squared by to get this?"

Anna shrugged. "Three x cubed? No. Three x to the fourth."

"Yeah, exactly. So that's the first term in your solution."

Anna wrote it down and then stopped. "I have to multiply this by every term in this bitch of a divisor, don't I?"

Sam gave her a look for the crude language. "Yeah, you do," he answered. "It's easy to mess up one part of the multiplication and get the whole problem wrong, so just be careful about it."

Anna wrinkled her nose in annoyance but started in on the problem. Math had never been her favorite thing, but she'd never been all that bad at it either. She could get caught up in this stupid class, rub it in her teacher's face-- or maybe just go back to sleeping for a little while-- and have one less thing to worry about. Worrying, worrying, worrying. And she realized by Sam's elbow to her side that she'd stopped focusing on the problem.

"Sorry," she mumbled and took a sip of Monster before going back to the problem. She figured out the second term in the solution and started to multiply but her brain just sort of shut off, and she found herself staring at the page, holding her pencil against it but not actually doing anything.

"Anna," Sam prompted gently. "You okay?"

With a surge of frustration, Anna shifted around until she was kneeling on her chair, sitting back on her feet. Her cast was just thin enough around her fingers to let grip the pencil, and when she moved, she dropped it, a mild annoyance that had her huffing with frustration. "I hate this," she said and dropped her forehead against the table, her arms crossed in front of it. "I can't concentrate."

"It's okay," Sam told her. "Just take a break, kiddo. There's nothing wrong with that."

Anna groaned. "We just started."

"I know," Sam said and put a hand on her head, a warm, comforting weight. Just that gesture said it was okay for her to be where she was. "But, hey, you know _how_ to do this now. That's something."

Her face, still against the table, scrunched with guilt. Why was he so patient, so understanding, so helpful? After everything she'd done without so much as an apology. Well, except for the wretched, manic one she'd offered on the phone but... that one had been addressed to Dean and it had been so in the moment... she thought it didn't count. "Sammy?"

"What?"

Anna grimaced and pulled her head up. Her eyes were dewy, but even she didn't know whether that was more from exhaustion or emotion. "I'm sorry," she offered in a tortured, quiet voice.

Sam frowned, head tilting just slightly. "For what?"

"For being an idiot."

"Anna, it's just a math problem. You'll get it-"

"No, not this," Anna pressed impatiently. "I mean before. How I messed everything up."

Sam's entire demeanour changed as he realized what she was talking about. "Anna..."

"I'm serious," she said even though she knew he already knew that. "I got mad about something that you did because Dad told you to and then I... I left you. I didn't listen and I just left. It was stupid and mean and... I know it doesn't change anything but I feel bad. I feel really bad. I didn't mean it how it looked," she said emphatically. That wet quality to her eyes was definitely tears this time. "I just couldn't think about anything else but her. And I... I don't want you to think I don't know what I have. I just... spent my whole life wondering about her and then she was there."

"You don't have to apologize for that," Sam told her when she'd finished. He shook his head a little, his hair falling into his face on one side. "You think I don't understand that? I've run before. To things, away from people. I've run for things worth a lot less than what you were looking for. Anna, wanting to know your mother isn't a crime. We were asking a lot from you by telling you everything at once and asking you to trust us anyway. We didn't expect you to take that well."

"Sam, I started everything."

"Don't. That way of thinking only leads one place, Anna, and you don't deserve to go there."

"What if I'm already there?" It was quiet for a second, and that static pain was back between their eyes again. "I'm sorry, Sammy," she said. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to break everything."

"Anna, look at yourself. You're the only one you broke. Hell, you snapped your own wrist practically in half trying to get out of those cuffs cause I couldn't get them off fast enough. I don't need an apology. I need you to stop torturing yourself over this."

For a minute, there weren't any more words. They understood each other, but they couldn't seem to reach each other's perspective either. Anna slowly shook her head. "I broke my wrist because I was trying to stop killing her," she said.

"Anna," Sam snapped so harshly that she actually flinched at the sound of his voice. "You did not kill her. Abaddon did. She was always going to. The second that demon caught up to her. And if you hadn't walked into their trap, they'd have set another one."

Staring at the table, hearing truths she'd never considered, Anna's stomach turned. Demons taking advantage of pain was nothing new. And since Abaddon's goal _had_ been to kill Chloe, she would have done it in the end, maybe more viciously and less quickly, but the end result would have been the same. Anna was surprised at how angry Sam had sounded as he told her that, though.

His voice was calmer, quieter, when he took her chin in his hand and turned her face toward him. "You don't need to feel guilty," he told her intently. "You just need to grieve." His eyes searched hers, and Anna let him see the gratitude in them. Then, because she knew he wouldn't do it, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged the fear out of him.

()()()

"Katie?" Anna said into the quiet of the mostly empty café. She had her back to the wall, her knees bent and feet up on the booth seat.

"Mhm?" Kate hummed on the other side of the table, eyes fixed on her laptop screen as she typed away on some essay for a scholarship contest.

"When's your Dad moving out?"

The sound of fingers against keys stopped instantaneously. "I don't know," Kate said in a quiet, hurt sort of voice. "Why?"

"Are you mad at him?"

"I guess," Kate answered. She picked at a hole in the leg of her jeans. "Actually, as bad as it sounds, I kinda think I'm relieved."

"No, I get it," Anna assured her. "You don't have to hear the fighting anymore."

"I don't have to deal with _any_ of his shit anymore. But I'm gonna miss him too. Or I'm gonna miss having both of my parents. I don't know. Something like that."

"You, uh... you want to do something young?"

Kate raised one eyebrow. "What does that even mean? You mean, let's be stupid?"

"I mean, do you wanna get drunk?"

"Not really," Kate answered honestly. "Do you want to?"

"Maybe."

Kate's shoulders slumped. "Now?"

"Café closes at nine anyway, so we'd have to go in half an hour."

"Yeah, and my mom is gonna pick us up in half an hour, so..."

"So, text her and tell her I've got us a ride instead. Ask if you can stay at the bunker."

"And then where do we _actually_ sleep tonight?"

"At the bunker."

"Where you're ignorant family won't notice you're drunk?" Kate asked sardonically.

Anna sighed and pressed her fingers against her temples and the headache that was there yet again. "I'm tired of worrying about things, Kate. Sam and Dean drink all the time, especially when something bad happens. And I've spent two weeks feeling like shit."

"I thought you said you were doing better."

"I said I feel less guilty," Anna corrected. "But I'm still sad and I don't know why."

"That's called grief."

"So I've been told. You know what people do when they're grieving? They stop being sad sometimes. You know how they do that? They get drunk."

"Anna, this is a bad idea."

"My favorite kind of idea."

Kate held her breath for a second, looking at Anna's eyes. She smiled as if she'd seen mischief there, but Anna knew better. Kate had seen her pain, and she'd responded by giving in, not by getting excited. But Anna still smiled back when Kate said, "Mine too," and pulled out her phone to call her mother.

It was one of the slummier bars in Lebanon, one her brothers' had never frequented as far as she knew, and that was why Snna chose it. The place smelled of cigarette smoke and urine, and Kate covered her nose, her face the picture of disgust. "God, do they all smell like this?"

Anna shrugged, hiding her disgust only a little better than Kate did. "They all have alcohol. That's the point."

As they walked to the counter, some guy who looked to be in his mid twenties whistled and then nodded when they looked his way. It was unclear which of them he was gesturing at, but Anna was grossed out either way. She walked a little faster toward the bar and Kate followed so closely that their arms were touching the whole way there. "This place is crazy," was whispered in her ear after, across the room, a game of pool ended with a loud threat and a handful of money being thrown.

They sat at the bar and, maybe it was the bags under her eyes, but Anna didn't even get carded when she asked for a couple of beers. The bartender just pulled a cigarette out from between his teeth and said with a puff of smoke, "Tap?"

Not knowing the difference, Anna said, "Yeah."

The guy nodded and it took just a couple minutes for two tall glasses to be set in front of them, foamy and brilliantly colored. "It's disgusting," she warned Kate quietly as they each picked up their glass. "Dean let me try it once, probably so I wouldn't want it ever again."

Kate made a face Anna found hilarious when she took her first gulp. "Jesus, that's nasty," she grouched as quietly as she could manage. "I don't want it."

Anna shrugged. "I'll drink it," she said. She went through the first one quickly. In part, that was because every time she drank some, she tried to do it quickly enough not to taste anything. That shit was _gross_. She felt pleasantly off kilter by the time the first cup was empty, and so she devoured the second one even faster than she had the first. It had only taken about half an hour, and her stomach felt terrible at having had so much so fast, but she giggled amusedly when she accidentally let out a loud burp and saw Kate's look of disgust.

"Oh my god. You got drunk really fast."

"Not drunk yet," Anna said in an exaggerated whisper. She waved at the bartender like she'd seen her brothers do before, but he was turned away and didn't notice her. She'd only been in places like this once or twice, and she'd always been strategically sandwiched between Sam and Dean the entire time. She grinned thinking about that. "I'm free!" she squealed. "I'm just me," she told Kate, who gave her a look of miserable confusion.

"You're drunk, A. There's a difference."

"Hi, beauties," came a curling voice on Anna's other side.

She wrinkled her nose and ignored the way Kate's hand had clamped down on her casted arm. "Hi," she greeted the blonde man sitting down on the stool.

"I'm here with a friend. We both go to the community college. You students there?"

"Actually, we go to-"

"Yeah," Kate cut her off. "The college."

Anna realized belatedly that she'd almost admitted they were underage. She smiled at herself. What a goofy kid.

"That's so great," the boy told them. "I'm Michael. And my homeboy, Lane, is majorly crushing on you, Rapunzel," he told Anna, reaching out to touch one of her pale blonde curls.

Kate suddenly stepped around in front of Anna and shoved the guys hand away. "How old are you?" she demanded.

"Twenty-two," he answered. "And I was thinking we could double." He looked meaningfully at Kate, whose lip curled in disgust. "Round of drinks," he said. "On us." He waved at the bartender, who appeared just a second later. "You look like tequila girls," he smirked and slapped a twenty on the counter. "Four shots of tequila," he requested.

"Believe it or not, I've never tried tequila," Anna told him, resting her casted right arm on the bar. She bumped elbows with Kate and didn't catch the freaked out look in her friend's eyes. Instead, she smiled at Michael's brown-haired friend Lane when he walked over and introduced himself. "Anna," she introduced and picked up her shot. "And Kate," she nodded sideways toward her friend. Kate hadn't touched her glass, but she didn't stop Anna from tossing back a shot alongside the two boys.

"I got a good feeling about this one," Lane announced and reached over and took Kate's untouched shot for himself.

Anna was still clearing her throat of the burn of tequila, eyes watering with it. She didn't know whether he'd been talking about her, about the night, about the drinks, whatever, but she knew she was more than buzzed now. The boys laughter was too loud and the clinking of glasses against the bar was too loud and Kate's hand on her arm was too much sensation, but then Lane put his hand on her neck and leaned in, and his breath smelled so strong that she shied away before she even understood what he was doing. But the moment shattered in an instant anyway, as a low, angry voice cut through the noise of the bar and rendered everybody in the room silent.

"Anna Winchester." Both of the college boys backed hurriedly away from the girls as Dean approached, his demeanour furious. Anna scrambled off her chair without even consciously thinking about what was happening. It was just an automatic response to that tone, angrier than just about any she'd heard from him before. His presence was commanding as he stood beside her and caught first her eyes, then Kate's, then that of Lane, who'd been way too close to his sister when he walked in. "She's fifteen," he informed in a tight but level voice. "Did you know that?"

"N-no, sir," the kid said, horror in his eyes that was probably from a combination of realizing he'd been about to make out with a teenager and being faced with a 6'2" wall of level-headed fury. "Sorry."

Dean turned on the bartender next, who was looking on in interest with a cigarette between his teeth. He was a big guy too, but not as big as Dean, and he took a physical step backwards with the force of Dean's gaze on him despite already being a safe distance away. "How the hell's I s'posed to know?" he defended around the cigarette in his mouth, hands raised in surrender. Dean held the man's gaze for a few more seconds until the guy tore his eyes away, and then he simply jerked his head toward the door and both the girls followed his silent command.

Outside, the cool air was refreshing, and Anna grinned in it. "Don't know what the hell you're smiling about, kid."

"Know what?"

Dean looked at her with a warning in his eyes, but Anna didn't see it for what it was. "I like tequila," she said, sounding ridiculously happy.

Behind her, Kate murmured, "Anna, you idiot."

"Mhm?" Dean asked, mouth twitching in anger or amusement or both as he looked down at his sister. "Know what?" Anna raised her eyebrows, prompting his answer. "You're about six years too young for tequila."

Anna's expression turned overly serious as she registered how angry Dean was. "I only had one," she told him sweetly as if this would change his outlook.

"Get in the car, Anna," he said. "And Kate?"

"Yeah?"

"Have fun telling your Mom why you lied to her."

()()()

"Hey."

The softly spoken word drew Anna's attention from the endless darkness of the night sky. She turned her head just enough to see Dean approaching over her shoulder.

"Sam said you were out here. You okay?"

Three nights since the bar fiasco, and the sadness was still there. Anna wasn't what she would call okay. But she had stopped answering that question with a yes every time she heard it, and that was improvement in itself.

She shrugged one shoulder and wrapped her arms more tightly around her stomach, knees against her chest. Her cast was clunky enough to make it uncomfortable, but goosebumps grazed her arms and legs as her toes curled in the cool grass beneath her. She liked the warmth more than she disliked the discomfort. Something welcomingly soft landed on her head and Anna reached up blindly to pull it off and see what it was. A sweater. She found the energy to shoot her brother an unimpressed look.

"Don't gimme that face. It's cold out here," Dean said defensively. He lowered himself to sit beside her on the grass and sighed loudly as Anna pulled the sweater over her arms and head, arranging it until she was comfortable, and pulling her hair out of the hood. "So, you takin' up star-gazing, Munchkin? Feel like shit?"

Anna shrugged again.

"That's a yes. Is this about..."

Anna pursed her lips and turned her face into her knees. "I don't feel like talking, Dean."

Dean frowned over at her, trying to figure out the puzzle that was his little sister. "But you know you can if you need to, right?"

There was a brief pause before Anna nodded into her knees.

Apparently unable to just sit and watch her go through this, Dean leaned over and pulled her sideways against him for a moment. Normally, Anna would have pushed him away, but instead she reached over and latched onto his flannel like she used to do when she was little. The moment felt warm, and not just because of their body heat on a chilly night, but because it had been so long since they'd sat like this.

"You wanna be alone?" Dean asked her a minute later. It was a rare offer, but she'd gotten it a handful of times since turning thirteen. It was like he remembered something about being a teenager that made him ask. Anna appreciated it, but she shook her head. "Okay," he said into her hair, and she made herself a little smaller, fit a little closer to his side.

They sat for a while in the quiet and relative calm of the night. The sky grew dimmer and dimmer until they could hardly see one another's outlines even though Anna was still wrapped in Dean's arms soaking in the comfort of a person she knew would stop at nothing to protect her from everything... even things that were out of his control. Even things that were her own fault-- though, she forcibly reminded herself, this wasn't. She slowly grew colder, shivering and feeling goosebumps form once more beneath the sleeves of her sweater. She couldn't imagine how cold Dean must be as she sucked the warmth out of him and he wore just his flannel shirt.

"It's late," Dean said after a while. They'd been silent for so long, but the words didn't feel intrusive. "You ready to go inside?"

If she were to say no, Anna had no doubts that Dean would sit outside with her all night long even if it got colder than a winter in Canada, darker than a wendigo's lair. "I guess," she answered quietly. She felt like no time had passed even though she'd been sitting watching the stars grow brighter in an increasingly shadowy sky. She didn't move to stand up and neither did her brother. Something about that made her speak. "Remember when I was a kid how we'd park someplace and you guys would look at the stars and I'd run around catching fireflies?"

"Course I remember."

With a sudden welling of emotion, Anna felt tears enter her eyes. "They don't look the same," she whispered.

Dean leaned his head down to see her face. "What?"

"The stars. The fireflies. They don't look the same. Like they did at Bobby's. Or in those fields in the middle of nowhere. They don't look like they did. Nothing does."

His arms got tighter around her, and his voice sounded pained when he asked her, "What are you saying, Anna?"

"I mean Dad. And then Ellen. And Jo. And Bobby. Even you and Sam. Your mom. My mom." She looked up at the sky, and the moonlight reflected off the tear tracks on her face. A reflection of a reflection. "And they're still there. I get it now. They're not the same ones. They explode and they regenerate and they're not the same ones." She sniffled. "And the fireflies die, and there are new ones. But they're not the same ones." Again, she sniffled, and Dean held her away so he could see her face more clearly, but she could see that it hurt him and she wondered if he regretted looking at her. "It all breaks but it comes back together again, looking the same but completely different. I don't know how to do that." A tear slipped down her cheek to hang off the edge of her chin. She shook her head and the tear fell, but another slid down to take its place. "I don't know how to do that."

"Anna." Dean was shaking his head when she looked up and found his eyes, filled with tears to match her own, but steadier, no tears making it out. "They only look the same because we're far away, kiddo." She shook her head, and she kept shaking her head until Dean put both hands on her face and held her still and nodded. He abandoned her metaphor and just said, "Nobody's asking you to be the same. People change. People die. Stop holdin' onto it, kid. Please." He wiped a tear off her face with his thumb.

Anna looked away from his eyes for a second. She looked at the stars. She looked at the moon. She thought about living there. About the holes in it. About its age, its simple callousness, its quiet mystery, its elusive beauty. She thought it was a much better metaphor. And she cried.

She cried until she couldn't anymore, cried until her stomach, her throat, everything hurt, cried until she was empty. Because once it was over, she could sweep up the glass, and she could try to rebuild something.

_La Fin_


End file.
